Wednesday 2-22-17

We had some fabulous hobby presentations this afternoon. I can't wait to see more tomorrow.

In LA, we finished our word study and worked more on our tribe reports which need to be finished Friday. You MAY work on them over break if you need to, but I will be grading them Wednesday March 8th and it is an important report card grade.

Speaking of report cards, the trimester technically ended today. We are an assessment based standards report card system, so we need to do summative assessments. Since we are presenting reports this week, I decided to save the LA assessments until after vacation - so we will have an on demand report writing - write about something you know in one session - and a reading assessment - read these two articles and watch a video - summarize, comment on author's craft - infer meaning and compare and contrast.  They sound harsh, but will take place at school and I will only give reading homework that week.

Speaking of reading homework - everyone keep reading. I'm working on more accountability for this after break.

Homework tonight:
Work on your tribe report
Read
Math skill sheet

Tuesday 2-21-17

Here is an note from the nurse:

Please know that if your child texts, emails or calls you from school due to illness or injury,  it should be from the Health Office. The protocol is that if a child is not feeling well or is injured, he/she is sent to the Health Office. We, with your student,  will decide  if a call home to a parent/guardian is warranted. Please ask your student if she/he has been to see the nurse first if there is a request to be picked up. Thank-you for your help on this important matter.

Today we all did Star Reading which is a reading comprehension assessment. After that, we had time for working on our tribe reports. Ms. Lamb has shared a boxes and bullets outline that can be filled out as a google doc after you make a copy of it. Here is her model.

In the afternoon, we finished day 4 of word study and continued working on our reports which are due Friday.

Homework:

Math: Quiz practice sheet from Mr. Meadows - skill sheet is due Friday

LA: Continue work on your report

Hobby project presentations start tomorrow. Be ready.

Wednesday 2-15-17

Even though Ms. Lamb says reading is the only assigned homework this week, some students are missing class for one reason or another and need to catch up on things. Here is what should be done so far:

Day one of word study
7 pages set up for your report and one - three sentences written on each page

Homework:
Read as much as you can but at least 20 minutes. Be ready to tell what you read tomorrow.

Math: Skill sheet and page 85

Tuesday February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day!

We never got around to discussing Valentines. Our general policy is you are welcome to, but please bring one for everyone.

Ms. Lamb decided it was a good day to revisit Growth Mindsets and arranged for some station work during the afternoon. Then we watched some of Meet the Robinsons which has a lot to do with growth mindsets.

We also made some compliment cards for each other (paper plates actually) and shared some sweet treats (thanks Alek, Hailey and Ms. Lamb.)

Tonight's homework:
Skill sheet due Friday
READ AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
Ms. Lamb is only giving reading homework as a MUST this week. See how much you can read in one week.
Optional includes: work on research, edutyping, word study (starting tomorrow)

Thursday 2-9-17

Homework
Math Courage - none Daring - page 74

LA edutyping and really reading for more than 20 minutes - checking in on the week tomorrow

Please note that there may become a ban on "thinking puddy" in the classroom. It is becoming a big distraction which is the opposite of its purpose. I also spent ten minutes cleaning it out of the carpet today.

We tried hard to work on our research today, but at about 9:15 the internet went down. We quickly got our shelf full of good old books from the library. Ms. Lamb had to introduce us to the book form of World Book Encyclopedia as well.

Tuesday February 7th

We had a wonderful time skating today. Thank you to Mark Morey, Susan Dodd, Margo Batsie and Megan Cole for coming to help us out and skate with us. Everyone stuck with it and had a good time.

Here is a couple of photos from last week's visit from Doug (Natalie's grandfather) and his terrific collection of Native American artifacts - homemade and collected. It was very very cool. Thank you so much for coming.

We had a great intention of watching a video called Meet the Robinsons when we returned, but the apple tv would not play it. Therefore we watched Monsters' Inc. and enjoyed some time together.

Back to work tomorrow.

Only homework tonight is reading and edutyping if you can get to it. Some kids still need to finish or upload reading project (3 slides). I think everyone finished their codex.

Thanks for a great day everyone.

Monday 2.6.17

Remember we are skating tomorrow. Bring a lunch and high socks and maybe an extra pair of socks. Bring a drink and snacks as well.

In LA we launched a get back to your reading initiative. Everyone got out the reading records to update and settled in with a book. Ms. Lamb got around to confer with everyone. Then we took out the rubric and our codices and applied the "answer sheet" provided by the project writers (not me in this case.) We self assessed and handed in.

Next, we begin our further research for report writing. Students may choose to do the same tribe or choose a new one. Here is the overview of the project.
Tribe Research

We continued watching America Before Columbus by National Geographic in the afternoon.

Homework:
Math: 3 examples from what we did in class (I can't remember what it was called...)
LA: Reading - read a lot and do some edutyping if you can

Week of January 30 to February 3

I really didn't mean for this to become a weekly blog. My writing life has gotten away from me.

This week we began our codex project. Students are in randomly assigned groups and were given a tribe hand out. The handout was organized for easy note-taking in these categories:
Geography
Lifestyle
Culture
Homes
Miscellaneous including what happened when Europeans arrived

After careful note taking and comparing notes with our group, we began our codex projects. Students are writing bullet notes for each category on one side of a flop and drawing illustrations on the other side. They are looking great and are due Friday. Students may work over the weekend if they need or want to. This is a crossover social studies and language arts project as will be our next big project, starting Monday, report writing on a specific tribe. It can be the same tribe as the codex. We will be reading two other sources and watching a video on the tribe while taking notes and prepare an organized report.

In math students have a new skill sheet due Friday and a packet they have been working on.

Students also have a new list of word study words this week. The entire packet should be done by tomorrow. Word study has moved into homework this second half of the year. New words and first sort happens on Mondays. Monday homework is 8 sentences, Tuesday repeat sort, Wednesday word hunt, Thursday blind sort. This will free up class time for reading, writing and Ms. Lamb teaching us other important new skills and methods.

Homework for Thursday:
LA : Finish word study packet - blind sort
10  minutes of edutyping if you can
Read for 20 minutes your choice of material
Math: Skill sheet due tomorrow
Optional homework: Codex - this is due end of day tomorrow. You may work over the weekend if you choose.